


Maeldaer's Black Mare

by Malsang



Series: Additional Perspectives on the Dusking of the Third Age of Arda [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Being a confidant is NOT fun, Being a councillor is NOT fun, Being a healer is NOT fun, Companion Piece, Difficult Decisions, Elf Culture & Customs, Explicit Gen? Wtf?, Flash Forward, Flashbacks, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Headcanon, Heavy Angst, Horses, Isolation, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Jealousy, Judgment, Magical Artifacts, One Shot, Plot Twists, Politics, Poor Life Choices, Pregnancy, Three Rings for Elven Kings, something's gotta give
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 03:44:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17418452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malsang/pseuds/Malsang
Summary: Just another not-so-fun day in the life of a Foresighted, Half-Elven, Healer, Council-Member Elflord wearing a Ring of Power, entrusted with the fate of Middle-Earth's future.No pressure then? Life's just brimming with carefree joy for Elrond? Get real.





	Maeldaer's Black Mare

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the start of events in headcanon 'The Courteship of the Woods' series; after The Hobbit, before LOTR inspired events. Written as a Flashback-bridge between Parts 1 & 3 (Thranduil's POV -> Gen POV, for those skipping the Part 2 meta-work), from Elrond's POV.
> 
> Works as a standalone character-study set, if you ignore the specific details of a single day's events.

Why did his guests always have to arrive when he was not at home? Elrond knew that the Lady Galadriel was here as soon as he passed back within the wards of his hidden realm. Spotting Lindir awaiting him was merely confirmation that she had already been here awhile, for the young elf was fidgety with nerves.

"How long has she been waiting?"

"These three hours past, my lord. Celeborn is with her this time."

He had not expected her consort also. Wearing Vilya allowed him to sibling-sense the presence of Nenya and Narya, if their influence came within the region he had bound to his own ring. Thus, the presence of Nenya in Imladris also meant the presence of the Lady Galadriel. His eyes were drawn to the highest point still within the boundary, for that would be where she would be. If he had not been a healer in his own right, he would have thought Vilya better suited to her; for she was birdlike in her love for high places. Yet her love for concealment and all things concealed was as innate as his talent for healing and thus, a river-valley Lord wore the Ring of Air, whilst a Lady of the mallorn grove wore the Ring of Water. Speaking of water...

He stooped to rinse his hands in a streamlet, as he could not appear before his visitors entirely unprepared, however long they had been waiting. It was not as thorough a wash as he had been looking forward to, but it would be sufficient for the moment.

He left Lindir behind as he climbed higher towards the White Council Chamber. The view was indeed breathtaking from up here, but so was the climb itself if one was in haste. Looking up, he could now see the pair as they stood on the viewing platform together, enjoying the view over Imladris. Endless stairs taken in haste are not fun at any age, he concluded. Four-hundred years ago, running this flight had kept him at the peak of fitness. Now he actually felt winded as he neared to top, slowing to allow his breathing and heart-rate to resume a more normal tempo. Peace had its downsides in that sense; war had necessitated that he be fitter than this. He'd become accustomed to walking everywhere sedately. Much more of this, and he'd be so unfit that even a Dúnedan would be able to keep pace with him, over distance.

"My apologies for my tardiness," he announced himself, "I was with a rather difficult patient."

"So I see," Celeborn murmured smoothly, a trace of amusement gracing his features. His wife smiled openly, but with an otherworldly warmth of genuine welcome. "He's beautiful Elrond. Your horsemasters have outdone themselves."

Self-conscious under the gaze of the mixed reception, he absently brushed horsehair from his clothes. The bodily fluids of the mare were however, nothing so easily fixed. "A breach birth," he offered up in explanation, "But otherwise very healthy."

"What do you call that coat colour?" Celeborn's eyes were alight with keen interest. "I've never seen it even among the Rohirrim herds when Shadowfax has a mind to sire." he invited the Elflord to expound.

"Blue-moon roan," the Elflord confided, a note of awe creeping in at the recollection of his Foresight of the adult colouration of the newborn foal. "At least in Westron. Maeldaer will have the honour of assigning it a Quenya term. He will probably write an extensive treatise on the subject. It might even be finished by the time the colt is old enough to be courted in earnest."

Galadriel gazed out over Rivendell once more, her hand linked with her consort's as they shared her Foresights. "He will not be easily courted," she imparted, "If he bonds as a foal, he will be utterly devoted to his rider, overcoming all fading-through-grief. Should he reach maturity secluded, as his mother will attempt to ensure, he will be wild and call no-one his master."

Elrond grimaced in recalled pain. The mare had managed to kick and bite either him or anyone else who got too close, more than once in her birthing throes. She had not wanted even elves to touch her, despite her agony and their promises of surcease. He normally didn't work with horses, but she had been unmoved by the horsemasters pleas that the foal must be turned. She did NOT wish to allow the foreign invasion into her body, when every instinct in her was currently screaming that things were supposed to come OUT of there, not go IN.

Elrond had been called upon to attempt to win her cooperation in this matter, for Maeldaer was near tears at the thought of losing the pair. Not only because she was his own partner, and this venture was a joint effort, but because he had invested centuries of his life into the bloodlines of her forebears and the sire's.

Sometimes being a healer was a truly ugly affair, and Maeldaer had not the stomach for violence against a loved-one. As her rider, he had held her head throughout; pleading and comforting by turns even as her teeth had drawn blood, assistants straining to restrain her heaving, prone form. But she had not allowed even that until Elrond Half-Elven had assured her that no-one would touch her but he as her healer, and her chosen.

She had cursed them both in language no mere mare of the Plains of Rohan would know, for she was as unlike them as the trees of Fangorn were unlike the unawoken trees of other forests. She had kicked out in a muddling of instinct and deliberate intent, as if they were wargs circling her; maternal instincts overcoming her logical thinking.

He alone in Rivendell had the strength of mind to resist the soul-bleed of her mental agony. She had named him Rapist and assaulted his mind as he had invaded her body, thrusting back in her hatred of all things unnatural. Hating them for making her aware of things that no horse should ever be troubled by; for the very instincts that had been bred into her line to make her more selective in choosing the sire of her foal.

Only the purity of newborn innocence had cleansed him of the infection of self-loathing, as he had pulled the shivering body of the foal clear of its mother's violated, kicking form, still awaiting the emergence of the afterbirth. The foal had nuzzled up to him in instinctive comfort-seeking, complaining that it was COLD out here. Tending to its simple needs, guiding it into taking its first breath, had restored his confidence in the righteousness of his actions; cleansing him of his doubts with its absolute naïvety of such things. He had cradled that body in sheer relief that his ordeal was over, their souls overlapping even as he had the presence of mind to prevent them from merging. He was not the colt's mother, and that first bond must be with her, to counter-act the loss of physical oneness with her.

Yet he had craved it, for the colt was eager to promise him that he need never feel alone again, and that was a sore temptation for a soul-wounded elf. Yet this line was not his creation - Maeldaer was the colt's vala-sire, not he. He had withdrawn from the colt then, despite its confused dismay that he should do so.

The still-shaky mare had been quick enough to take his place, trailing the restraints that had finally been loosed from the gripping hands of her unwanted attendants. The beauty of their bonding was marred only by her fading rage at what had been done to her, drawn like pus from a wound by the inborn, mind-suckling instincts of the colt.

The image of them had blurred before his eyes as Foresight had dawned. He had seen a glorious stallion whose coat had rendered him almost invisible in the moonlit, swirling mists that surrounded him. Only his movement of rearing up to balance on his haunches like some ethereal, watchful sentinel - head turning towards a sound only he could hear - caught the eye, allowing the observer to conclude that he guarded and guided those equine shadows around him through their darkest hours of vulnerability in the stead of the matriarch who guided the herd by day.

Yet there was an untamable wildness to the scene, something feral about that unhorselike pose which queered the beauty of it. It was an aggressive watchfulness that boded ill for any who would dare to approach, and there was no wisdom shining through those calculating eyes. This one knew no love for any but his own kind, and he would kill to defend his own from outside influence.

And Elrond Knew that this was his fault. He saw those first seeds of influence grown to full maturity, and regretted his actions. His lonely lifestyle and hardened willingness to do all that was necessary, had been the first influence upon that stallion; reinforced by its mother's rage against all elfkind and by extension, all creatures of light. This was his mess and somehow he must fix it.

"He is ... unique among horses." he admitted to the Lothlórien rulers, pushing away the shadows of remembered Foresight.

"Many paths lay before him," Galadriel offered soothingly. "An even number leading to light and dark ways. He is as free to choose what will become of him, as you once were, Elrond Peredhel."

He was reminded of something a halfling had once dared to repeat in his presence; that he had 'heard that it was unwise to seek the counsel of elves, for they would answer you both yes, and no'. The comfort the Lady offered was a double-edged sword; as much a reference to innocence lost and freedom forsaken, as it was reassurance that the future was not yet fixed and without hope. That halfling had uttered razor-sharp insight into the core of what it meant to be an elf, however naïvely. Yet that look of innocent worry that he had overstepped the mark with his companionable overture, had spoken of wisdom exceeding that of merely repeating the wisdom of others in wry mimicry. Elrond had smiled then at being gently teased, and subtly hinted at his longing for a close friend who could remind him not to take life so seriously; one who could take the edge off the isolation of leadership. But it was not to be, for the halfling was caught up with Mithrandir's own efforts to steer the future, and Elrond's offer had come in poor second to the promise of adventure, in one so young.

He felt the nudge of a mind attempting to discern his thoughts; Vilya's power to preserve was shielding him from the dipole power of its lesser sibling's ability to reveal as well as conceal, offering him a choice no other received. With his mind currently closely associating his recent actions with Galadriel's own intrusion, he invoked the ring to preserve his mental privacy. He did not wish to experience such an overture as an act of mental rape.

Galadriel was not petty, but having her overture rejected was still a blatant snub. "His was a difficult birth," he offered in place of the more intimate sharing, "His mother's chosen was unable to bring him into the world in a less violent manner. It was a stressful experience for all present."

She smiled gently, "Sometimes the most obvious solutions are not the brightest way forward. There is one here who is the clear partner for one with such abilities."

It had occurred to him to pair the two, in light of her insights into the hidden qualities of the colt. It would serve many purposes at once. "A patient of mine whose mind resists my attempts to heal it." he postulated, "Maeldaer cannot become his chosen, and the mare will not allow other elves near her foal." He subconsciously leaned more heavily into Vilya's power to preserve his composure, he could not afford for any of his current thoughts to be read, even in the lines of his posture.

Celeborn quirked an eyebrow at that, sharing his wife's awareness, through Nenya's, of the power flux. "You are a lot more than you present yourself to be, Lord Elrond. My wife has offered this explanation to me many times when we have discussed the sessions of the White Council. Always you are in the background, as if you are merely an observer at such events rather than an equal to those others present. You keep your counsel to yourself so much that I have often wondered why you are on the council at all."

"Do not mistake my desire to preserve the privacy of my patients as secrecy for its own sake, Lord Celeborn. For I assure you that one cannot remain a trusted confidant to the vulnerable, if one does not restrain the urge to share one's own opinion freely. Such habits, once formed, are not easily set aside; nor would developing a counter-habit be anything but destructive to my practice."

"And yet you are said to be as skilled at taking lives as preserving them."

"All the more reason for habits of restraint, I assure you."

But this seed of doubt was flourishing, in close proximity to a ring-wearer, no less. He felt the pressure increase as Galadriel's curiosity was piqued - he would not dare to suggest that one such as her was stung by the inference that her own attitude to life was being called into question. In the space of a few sentences, relations between Lothlórien and Imladris had deteriorated from amicable to suspicious. Such things were beyond even Vilya's power to prevent, especially against a sibling ring. Concealment was Nenya's strength, and Vilya could not outdo its own sibling on that front. Nor could it supply him with the fire of conviction and self-assurance that was Narya's forte.

The triplet rings were like a sword blade divided into parts: Narya was the strength to be found below the mid-point of the blade, capable of exerting the greatest brute force but lacking reach. Nenya was the very point of the blade, always reaching, searching, seeking; ultimately agile and exceedingly sharp, yet lacking the intrinsic strength to act upon that which it discovered, unless the other rings aligned behind it in a lethal thrust. For Vilya was the utilitarian span between the two - dexterous, yet deadly in its own right; the cutting edge wielded to slice, rather than hack or pierce. Its nature could be as easily turned to lethal force as used as a scalpel. Thus, restraint was all the more necessary with Vilya; its intended purpose of healing must not be corrupted, or he would lose his mind in the sheer ease of violence with such a razor-sharp blade - however foreshortened and lacking the necessity of a point, (a reason) - at his disposal. Curiosity was Nenya's besetting sin, as blunt haste was Narya's. Vilya by comparison, was Judgement Incarnate; lacking both the intrinsic insight to wish to act, and the strength of conviction in purpose to do so.

He knew these weaknesses and guarded against them as best he could. He grasped that Celeborn was frustrated by his wife's ring-bound curiosity and fondness for Mithrandir - her admiration for such strength to act; strength which Nenya naturally sought to offset the intrinsic short-sightedness of, in its sibling. Yet it was Vilya which innately bought the two together. His was the bridge upon which Galadriel and Mithrandir sought to meet, as ring-wearing soul-mates; a pattern that grew more ingrained as the years passed with the rings upon their fingers.

He was the link which Celeborn felt moved to attack, unable to directly compete with a Maia for the affection of his wife. He was no blatantly powerful leader in his own home, merely a consort relegated to his Lady's shadow. And thus this reflection of himself seen in Elrond, he felt justified in attacking.

There was indeed more to Elrond than met the eye, but Celeborn was about to lead his wife into breaking through the wards of the Healer. And what they would uncover would more than justify in their minds, the necessity of doing so. They would rape him, and he would lose his mind; all because secrets were not tolerated within Nenya's influence. Yet Vilya would seek to preserve him, would cause him to lash out; just as Maeldaer's mare had done. The only unknown was who would kill whom first; and all because Celeborn felt less than worthy of being Galadriel's true consort.

Vilya alone preserved his judgment in that moment, and with indecorous haste he questioned Galadriel, "You do not approve of this union?"

Celeborn's eyes flashed at the unintentional double-entendré, but Galadriel was more interested in steering Elrond's choices in the fate of his patient. "I warned you before, not to get too attached to this boy. If he remains here much longer, he will call the wargs down upon your people, and the colt will run with them instead of his mother, if they are bonded at this early stage."

Celeborn was horrified, "What manner of creature is this patient of yours?"

Galadriel however stepped to Elrond's defence. "Merely another who faces many crossroads," she countered, but her own curiosity was growing.

Growing more desperate, Elrond hastened to preserve the thread of the initial conversation, "Advise me." he asked directly, reckless in the moment of building tension.

"His best path lies east, to the Halls of the Woodland Realm and beyond that, to Erebor."

"He would not survive such a path: He has arachnophobia - he would panic."

"Then you must go with him to guard his mind from such a fate."

"I cannot be seen to be invading Mirkwood. Thranduil will not tolerate further western interference in the politics of that region. He has made it quite clear that Mithrandir is never to return there, on pain of eternal imprisonment in his dungeons, under heavy guard."

"Then you must not be so blunt in your approach. You must court Thranduil's goodwill with all of the grace you once showed to Celebrían."

"I fear that my best dancing days are behind me, my lady."

"Apparently not," Celeborn snarled, as his wife laughed at whatever mental image they shared.

He envied them their closeness in that moment, and braced for the assault that he knew was coming.

"Is only a king worthy of your 'best moves'?" he snarled. "You ask my wife's advice and yet you refuse to share with her, all she would need to see clearly what is to come? You have no idea what she must endure. Why have you keep silent when you know how much is at stake?"

The hypocrisy stung. "And you believe that losing your temper will overcome all resistance and serve the greater good?"

"I am a warrior! I am not afraid of my own shadow! You know something crucial that will affect the fate of all of us, and yet you remain dumb in your cowardice! Do not keep secrets from us, Councillor!" he spat.

The pressure rose and he endured. In the distance, he heard cracking rock and screams as Vilya's power was diverted. Dismayed, his resolve wavered, and Nenya's power pierced his mind in a lightning attack.

Soul-wounded, he collapsed, bleeding memories like lifeblood; reliving his worst memories, foresights and nightmares as the two pawed through his most intimate fears, seeking callously for anything recognisable. Drenching him with their horror over the twisted recollections and corrupted memories, judging him harshly from their ivory tower.

Reason abandoned him and he leapt at Celeborn, only to be dodged at the last second and find himself over thin air with nothing to slow his fall as the fine spray of the waterfall seemed to hang, unmoving, in the air around him. Not even an elf could climb up water-droplets, though he gave it his best shot for many, long, drawn-out seconds, until he hit the rocky pool of white water below with bone-shattering finality.

*

He shook off the Foresight, and sipped his tea quietly, waiting for his hands to stop shaking with adrenaline. It was going to be a long day, but forewarned was forearmed, and this was just part of his normal morning-routine of planning the day ahead. He had a few hours yet before Maeldaer would feel the need to seek him out, which meant that he had time to prepare; to pre-empt the pregnant mare's recalcitrance and Celeborn's need for marriage counselling. Lindir would be here in a few minutes, and normally he would be taking notes, but he had to wait until he could write legibly rather than in a shaking scrawl.

It was not everyday that he Foresaw his own death, but it wasn't the first time and he suspected that it would not be the last. Maeldaer's dark-coated mare had been the death of him several times already. He just hoped that with the colt finally born, she would stop being such a personal nightmare of his.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Might need something stronger than just tea there laddie. Good luck sorting out that mess.
> 
> Author recommends reading the work immediately following this one, before returning to the main headcanon-story.


End file.
